Mindful Consumption: Patronage and Support to Our Public Liquor Stores

Another conference was attended, giving me a lot more to dwell on with the current political climate in this province and reviewing the insidious changes to the Saskatchewan Employment Act, and how it ultimately affects us as not just unionized employees, but all of us as workers in general. I thought I'd better start taking a firmer stand on things; to be a more conscientious opponent against all the bad things that this government is doing to strip away our crown corporations and the privatizing of other public institutions. We ended the first evening of it having a bit of a social mixer and being well entertained with a hypnotist act. On the closing of day two, a note of gratitude came to our entire group from the young lad who was our bartender the night before. He said that ever since he worked at the hotel where our conference was, we were the people who he had so far made the most tips from; this is news coming from a guy who on numerous times served that same room full of businessmen and corporate big shots who probably drank more and had a lot more money than us to spread around for gratuities, but their habit of greed prevented them from doing so. That fact gave me lots of faith that we as unionized employees are really innately out there looking out for our fellow labourers, affiliated or not. The subjects of liquor, corporate business greed and hypnosis set my mind to write about this so called trial of privatized liquor stores in the province, and the propaganda that the Wall government is trying to use to sell us on this nonsense. Given what I said in my second sentence, one thing of meaningful action I vow to do, and we all should do as well, is this:

Stop buying from the new privatized liquor stores in this province. Why?

They take profits and revenue away from being used for public services and works in the province. With that money in pure profit diverted instead to private corporations, the government then becomes further relegated to reclaim those losses through more taxation elsewhere, or else slashing funding to other aid programs and public services and amenities. The yield from the profits going to the government coffers from just Saskatoon alone is huge: one million a month from just one of the larger ones alone, according to one of the brothers from SGEU. I dread to think about how much of a loss that would be if all of a sudden every liquor store in this province became privatized.

The employees of the private stores are paid less than the unionized workers at the public liquor stores for the same labour, and I will not support an entity that is doing its part to drive a bigger wedge between the rich and the poor, and taking away from its workers the chance of having a fair living wage, despite the fact that I'd be paying about the same price (or perhaps even more in cases) for the same product at private store. If you do manage to find a cheaper price for the same product at the private store, the average overall difference is probably amounts to within the range of a dollar. However, the difference between the hourly wage non-unionized and the unionized employee is usually greater than a dollar. Why can't they then just be paid the same higher wage if the workload and product prices have little to no significant difference? There are discounts in the public liquor stores too, but just because they aren't advertised more publically in a flyer, as with the case of the private store, we are given the illusion and misconception that there aren't any discounts at all in the public liquor store. I find it to be a strange irony that the private stores can advertise alcohol "publically" while the public stores do not.

You may, for whatever reason, truly hate your current government; and may think that by not buying from the public liquor store it will be your way of "sticking it to the man!" , but think of this repercussion. The reality is that when you take that booze money from the government and instead give it as a profit to a singular (family-owned as is the case with Sobeys here) multi-billion dollar corporation, that buys and lobbies governments on their agendas without our say so, you have basically started a trend of selling off whatever personal political power that you have left as a citizen and a consumer, to a corporation who will give you sweet-bugger-all as a result of their profits, unless you are a share-holder and relying on the crap shoot that is the stock market for a dividend return from them. When all is said and done, the ultimate thing that all governments respect is a means of filling their coffers. The more means of power that a mass of citizens has to pay its government directly, the greater the chance that same government might actually listen to and think more about those masses of people rather than listening the whims of a corporation that has become too large with money: to the point where their money is greater than that of what the rest of the masses have combined.

If there is little to no difference in savings in cost for product, what about the factors of transportation: vehicle usage, fuel, and time? On a personal level, the public liquor store I use is close enough to cycle or walk to; it's convenient, more economical, and more environmentally responsible. The cost of fuel I'd be using to drive to either private liquor store from my place on either end of this town would burn up whatever savings (if any) I would have gained from the booze I bought there. In a practical sense, it's totally pointless for me to buy from the private stores here. As it is now, in Saskatoon, the two private stores are logistically located in some very out of the way spots for the majority of the population of the city, while the public stores are distributed more closely amid the majority of the residential neighbourhoods. You certainly wouldn't be buying the privately sold liquor for the fuel economy (or to save time) in Saskatoon unless you maybe lived in the far West End or in Stonebridge. I don't even have to draw out the Hamiltonian circuits or Eularian graphs to prove it. As someone who grew up rurally, it drives me crazy when people don't more accurately account and factor in for the actual fuel and time costs in the overall "savings" when getting their purchases.

I'm a frugal person, but not to the point where my saving of a few nickels and dimes supports depriving another local worker a chance for a few more dollars and protected rights and benefits if s/he were union affiliated, and only serves to take away revenues that help my community and province, and gives more power and leverage for corporations to exploit people and crawl into the hip pocket of government leaders. Buying from the public liquor stores is a direct investment into the province of Saskatchewan. Buying public ultimately serves the greater good.

First Outdoor Run of Spring, Sports Psych Workshop

I cycled over 14 kilometers yesterday, and woke this morning without too much tension and cramping today. So, I gave myself permission to try running again. Today was the first run outside I had since I was injured.

Goals/Objectives:

1. To head out and return home without re-injuring myself
2. To at least break a good working sweat
3. Target: to make it to the Bessborough and back on the Meewasin Trail
4. To burn over 500 calories
5. To cover 5 km of distance, under 45 minutes (realistic given my degree of injury)
6. To keep my heart rate under 170 BPM
7. To reactivate my "muscle memory" in my legs after such a long lapse

Challenges/Discoveries:

I expected that walking was going to be more prevalent than running for today. What I discovered that was even more debilitated than my foot and leg was my breathing. I still have very under-trained lungs, that are filled with a winter's worth of stagnancy. My breathing was impaired even more due to the fact that there still is a high degree of tension in my shoulders, back, and ribs. It didn't take long to stress my heart enough to get up to 170 BPM. The reason to keep the rate below that level is to avoid the chance of serious lactic acid build up. which would consequently and adversely affect my calves and foot. This was a back-to-square-one feel out session; primarily to jar my legs and lungs back into regaining their memory for this sort of rigour.

Today's Results:

• Made it to the Bess and back; minimal aching, and most importantly, no limping
• 8'44"/km average pace
• Calories burned: 729
• Average heart rate: 154 BPM
• Time: 44:40

Future Goals/Decisions:

• To bring 5 km pace back to 30 minutes or less by May 19th
• To build up a range of 8 km or more of steady running by May 19th
• To set my operational maximum heart rate at 170 BPM by May 19th
• To regain medical clearance, or to avoid re-injury by May 19th
• If all these criteria are met by May 19th, I will retain my registration for my spot in the Saskatchewan Marathon

Thankful for:

• Finally having a beautiful sunny day to try all this out
• The inspiration I got from the duathelon I watched yesterday
• The valuable bits of info from the SRRA workshop
• Seeing the ladies on the trail wearing shorts, and Lulu Lemon athletic wear again. Who ever invented this stuff deserves to be awarded the Order of Canada medal

The SRRA Sports Psychology Workshop:

Yesterday's SRRA (Saskatoon Road Runners' Association) workshop was about sports psychology. Typically, I find the act of running more mental than physically: except for this year, now that I'm overcoming being injury stricken. It was important for me to attend it because it's impossible to reacquaint my body to the activity again without having a congruent mindset as well.

There was a review about goal-setting, cool. However, I listened a little more attentively to the process of guided imagery: using some sort of image or scene to help you focus. There was encouragement to allow ourselves to imagine becoming something fast and powerful during the process of running a race, like being an unstoppable train, or a cheetah perhaps. I tend to think of things of the natural world when I willingly bring to mind things that are the extremes of being fast, agile, and focused. My inspiration comes from the birds of prey, despite the fact that their movement doesn't even involve running.

Here's one ideal example of creative imagery. The Peregrine Falcon: nature's version of a heat-seeking missile. It's a very sleek and balanced looking bird. Air Forces of the world actually hire ornithologists to study the flight patterns of these creatures in depth with hopes to use the findings to improve aerial combat tactics. When I think about an animal that symbolizes fast, I'll opt for a falcon over fast terrestrial animals, like a horse or cheetah, every time.


However, more realistically, if there was an even more fitting bird-of-prey anima figure that actually did represent me as a runner now, it would probably be the Grey Owl, in both appearance and performance, compared to a falcon. It's the much more portly of the two species, much slower, with a huge fat fluffy grey head mounted on a stockier body. Not so intensely focused looking, like the falcon, but more inquisitive. It's more like nature's version of a stealth drone.

I'm hoping that my progress in going from owl to falcon won't take too long. May 19th is the date set to examine all this again, and to make that critical decision.

Pasta, Marshmallows, and an Egg: The Tools for Collaboration

I like attending the workshops at the union office. I find them very enlightening. Attending the one today was a very welcome thing, to get me away from vegetating too long inside my place. It ended up being a fun day. The activity that was most appealing to me in this session was an exercise involving collaboration with a team. Our task was to build a tower with dried spaghetti and marshmallows, as high as we could, which could support a single raw egg on top of it, within a time limit of twenty minutes.

I liked it because not only it was an opportunity to play around and experiment with my limited knowledge of architecture and engineering, but because I got to see how my leadership style works, and how I operate in a team setting. I prefer spending much of my time living and working independently; so I admit and acknowledge that I'm a little oblivious about my personal style of collaborative problem solving and involvement in teamwork.

When it came to task, I introduced the idea of a geodesic design to the group and showed them what a tetrahedral structure looks like, and how to take these small units and build onto them in a patterned frequency for a supportive structure. The idea was totally foreign to these guys, but they caught on quickly after I gave a demonstration. Another guy gave some input as to how reinforce the base's struts, the two women of our four member group were reacting a little frantically as we neared the end, just about knocking it down, but they created an innovative design for the "egg cradle". The structure got somewhat sloppier as it got higher, as we were rushed to finish before time was up, but we still won the challenge, not only in height, but I would dare say we also won in terms of aesthetic appeal compared to the others at the 00:00 mark.

There was more than one dimension in which this was enjoyable. It was just working with a good team itself. My current reluctance to work or play in teams is a result of witnessing/being involved in too many bad teams with in the past. As minor as this recent accomplishment was, I realized that this has been the first time in a long time that I've been able to have a group of more than two people work with me* on a project without naysaying, negativity, bickering, impudence, big egos, sore losers, nagging, or just the outright ignoring and rejecting of any (or my) ideas without reason when sharing constructive input** in a brainstorming session. It showed me how important an environment of respect, focus, trust, honesty, encouragement, support, and solidarity is to have when I do join teams, and just how much those elements have been lacking in the dynamics of most team settings I was stuck in. It's a tall order to ask for. It gave me insight as to why I so often choose to work alone and independently.

TED lecturer, Tom Wujec, has a better explanation of the potential team building exercise with similar such materials and objectives than what I can present. I embedded a link for a video for better elaboration. I wish our prize was $10,000 worth of software.

Tom Wujec on Tower and Team Building.

 

If you should be so curious and adventurous as to try out what we did, here is the challenge:

 

Materials

• 900g dried spaghetti
• 500g bag of large marshmallows (use the fruit flavoured ones if you want to be colourful)
• 1 raw egg

Object: As stated above, build a tower as high as you can with the pasta and marshmallows, that's strong enough to support the weight of a raw egg placed on top of it. Good Luck! Do your best!

 

Here is the link to the official site for the rules of the real Marshmallow Challenge

*- Just to clarify: I work best one on one with people, like me and tolerate being around one or two other co-workers. Larger teams are my challenge. 
**- To rub salt in the wounds, it especially pisses me off when my theory was right to begin with; then some other bozo in the group comes around to opting what I originally suggested, and then tries to claim credit for it when it does works out. I make it a point to weed such people out of my life, and stop working with such bottom-feeding parasites. It has happened often enough that I'm still unwilling to share thoughts in a group setting.